Those adjectives

[LFG List]

Dear lfg-list

Just a possibly small point of fact regarding copula-less-ness.
"Null copula" and not having a copula are not the same thing, at
least in my understanding.  If a language lacks a copula, it lacks
it entirely; a "null copula" is an analysis that says that some
circumstance in which there is no overt copula morpheme has a
morphologically non-realized linguistic object that serves the
same function as an overt copula morpheme.  

I myself am somewhat skeptical of null-copula analyses, but I 
think a case can be made for them in languages such as Bengali,
where an overt copula morpheme surfaces in certain circumstances
e.g. the past tense (If I'm wrong and this is not the case with 
Bengali, somebody let me know.  It is the case in Russian, and 
I think also Hebrew).  Other languages such as Sinhala and Tamil
lack a copula morpheme regardless of time reference, and hence
make a null-copula analysis more problematic (unless one is not
particularly bothered by morphologically unrealized linguistic
objects).  

This point bears on how a null-copula analysis of the sort proposed
by Burquest would work in particular languages considered.

Hope that makes some sense.

John Paolillo
UTA Linguistics Program